Don't forget the real reason. If you need help remembering, go ask a republican.
"Because we're right, and they're wrong!" (Of course it's not any better on the "That's not change, that's more of the same!" side of the aisle either...)
Seriously, I think if the plan is world domination and overtaking Windows market share, we have to pick one DE, one toolkit, one file system, etc.
Good thing we here at slashdot don't have any unhealthy obsession with toppling Goliath...
And any real trekker knows that re-routing power is a command decision. It's up to the captain to decide if those jerks in stellar cartography get any air...
Yes, but they must also have 5 years experience in developing, maintaining and administering a state of the art web 3.0.Net on rails e-commerce customer "engine"... (And be willing to work for less than India).
Seriously though, I'm sure they already covet the cellphone model, and this is only the first step towards that (can't wait to see those TV ads for family nights and weekends surfing). Well maybe not the first step...
Insane contract tom-foolery? Check.
Horrible quality of service? Check.
Incompetent customer support? Check.
Mirroring all of our private data on government servers to be searched by next generation echelon? Check. (What, you really think they don't?)
Geez, it's a lot closer than I thought. All we need now is some guy in hornrims out wardriving, "Can you ping me now? Good."
I miss my IBM XT too, but do we really want to go back to swapping floppies? Currently 16 GB is enough only for anyone who doesn't do anything with digital media... My CD collection takes 16GB by itself. RAW files from my camera take ~10MB each, and let's not even get into video. You have to remember that most laptops are sold as desktop replacements. Only us geeks have an overpowered desktop, terabyte raid NAS and a laptop (bare minimum). And since Vista + Page File = ~10GB... Of course Linux uses less and does more, but that's not what comes pre-loaded (yet).
"A casual home user who needs a word processor shouldn't be expected to lay out $500 for some overblown suite."
Which is why most all pc's sold in the bigbox stores come loaded with Works or WordPerfect. And some dippy photo editing app. And an equally dippy disc burning app. And probably some other stuff. What isn't included is the stuff that's brand name recognizable, your Office, your Photoshop, your Nero. And while the tools that come with the machine are more than adequate for most, some (most) people just have to have the best of the best. You could install Ubuntu and show them how every single computing need they will ever have can be filled by open source without spending a penny, but you still won't have an answer for "Where's Roxio Easy CD Creator? That's all I know how to make CD's with and I'll be damned if I'm going to change for a machine!"
Of course with the new low power chips and micromini-itx pc's and cheap lcd's, maybe the price difference between open source and commercial software will become obvious enough that people will start voting with their wallets...
Or they'll just buy whatever has the most "bling" and pirate everything else...
And how is "Chick" degrading? I can't see the difference between it and say, "Dude." Maybe I should start a protest blog the next time someone calls me a "Feller"...
"They can learn all this new stuff and provide the same service cheaper."
At some point there will be a "Management Revelation" that cheaper != better. Currently it looks that we get the same output from offshore for less money because the vast majority of people onshore spend their whole day:
1. Covering their Ass.
2. Making someone else look bad.
3. Trying to get out of work, while somehow appearing more important.
4. Posting in forums on the internet...
While the offshore staff actually works.
So the choice is, follow the same office-politics status quo that has been around for a half century, or do actual work and provide actual value for your company. You'll still be "right sized" but you won't be in the unemployment line. And when common sense does break out and "You get what you pay for" becomes the new mantra, you'll be sitting pretty.
Of course we'll all just end up working for different departments of the Peoples Global Republic of Wal-Mart, but you don't have to be a douche on the way there.
The "Walk through beijing" was part cgi (think "Beowulf"), in fact the commentators said so before, during and after the segment. They specifically stated that it was being shown rendered because there was no way to safely film it. Of course I watched it at 3am on the rebroadcast. Maybe those fiends at NBC waved their terrible editing wand over the whole thing...
"In fact, one of the NES cart fixes I recall was pushing it down slightly so there was some friction, and squirming the cart around in the connector.;)"
That's a bigger problem than blowing on the carts. By shoving it in and moving it around and what not, you're actually spreading the socket out causing less contact with the board.
Was the call center actually Apple owned? Or was it one of the many "Teleservice" outsourcing companies? Either way, the described situation sounds exactly like standard call center practices. The sad part is most companies seem to think call center = help desk. You can have one or the other, but not both. A help desk costs more, but yields better results whereas a call center costs less and yields nothing but frustrated customers. Unfortunately most organizations seem unable to see past the bottom line of the next quarter.
"If the problem isn't with the UI and isn't with the installer and isn't with the apps why isn't Linux on the desktop gaining any traction?
Because it doesn't come as the de-facto standard pre-installed OS of choice at the retail outlets (on and off line). When people say, "you should really try linux/bsd/whatever", the response is "Why? My computer already came with windows."
It always comes down to the "Business Transaction". Corp Decision makers don't take anything without an 8 figure price tag seriously, and grandma has to buy her print shop discs. The consumer mindset is focused on how much things cost. We want to save as much as we can on stuff we buy all the time (hence the food section at walmart, you might as well eat industrial waste...), but when it comes to "things" that others might see, we spend like no tomorrow. Houses, cars, boats, clothes, fancy electronics, etc. And the fact is, most people still equate software with the box it came in.
From what I've seen recently with rising gas prices putting more and more people on their feet or a bike or a moped or whatnot, I've realized that the best thing for combating climate change is even higher gas prices. People are going to start living closer to work, are going to be more involved in creating livable communities and putting an end to sprawl.
I brought that up to make this point.
If we replace "climate change" with "intellectual apathy" and "gas prices" with "cable/satellite prices", we may actually have a direction...
Of course the kids are all on the internet now, but maybe if we curb the TV as a Sitter practice during the younger ages, perhaps their later years won't be filled with such stupid pop culture bullshit, and theyrell be room for worthwile
Yes, it would. I'm infinitely more comfortable using one of those then any trackpad. Put it in the same area as touchpads are and my very capable left thumb (thank you sega, sony and microsoft) would have no trouble navigating my screen. Hell, throw in a second one on the right for scrolling vert and horiz.
Or they could save everyone some time and just include a mini already-paired bluetooth mouse in the box.
Salty Lime-Aid that is, and once project Margaritaville gets off the drawing-board, global warming will be nothing more than a fuzzy (at best) memory...
Using my experiences with Qwest to judge by, they most likely agreed to the monitoring initially, but soon found that their "network" was not capable of such feats and came up with the afforementioned "Ballsiness" as a cover for their technical ineptitude. Real ballsiness would have been alerting the media/public the second the feds asked them.
I agree completely. That "if" changes everything. Make a pile of this suitable hardware and see if it fills your desk. I'll be over in superdome with my pile of "Linux-Suitable" hardware.
I must have gotten just the wrong laptop, but when everything from startup to standby takes considerably less time and my HDD indicator isn't constantly twitching when using linux, I have to wonder. I couldn't try XP, nVidia drivers won't install for my nforce/7150 combo, and HP only lists drivers for Vista.
My last straw came when I attempted to install the software that came with my new camera to read it's RAW format, and the installer was allowed by the system to install 32 bit directx 9. On vista x64. First, shame on me for not tossing any included cd's, they're always a waste of plastic. Second shame on Sony for coding such a stupid installer. Third and most importantly, shame on vista for letting it happen at all. And if my error is "Windows cannot start because the following file is missing or corrupt", and it tells me to put my install dvd in, shouldn't it logically follow that it's just going to replace those files? I guess not since it sat thrashing my HDD for 15-20 minutes and finally gave up.
Oh well, ubuntu just works, the only pain was the wifi (which took 1 download, 2 commands and a reboot to fix).
So we can ignore Apple and Microsoft's licenses because we don't like them, but if anyone even thinks about subverting the GPL, fire up the pot of boiling oil? Awesome.
Personally I believe the choice has to be made by the individual, not the courts. Enough people start reading EULA's and asking uncomfortable questions at retail, and we may see better licenses, or even more use of free software. Of course that would require everyone be educated about software licensing, and have their brains rewired from a lifetime of marketing exposure...
If you like KDE apps, which I don't. There's just something about the interface and menus and what not that I just can't stand. Oh well.
Back on topic, I personally use rawstudio to import from my camera do some basic adjustments and then export to gimp. And mono be damned, F-Spot is a perfect iPhoto replacement. I've played with lightroom and aperture on vista and leopard respectively and find both work well, but just don't justify their pricetag for me.
There are plenty of options, and they should all be available in most distro's repos, so just try them all (even the KDE stuff). I used synaptic and searched "camera" and installed anything that looked decent. I found dcraw liked my camera better than ufraw even though ufraw lists my model as supported and dcraw does not... So as always, YMMV.
Slashdot Mirror
If it's my pos printer there needs to be a fourth option:
* Burn motherfucker, burn.
Don't forget the real reason. If you need help remembering, go ask a republican.
"Because we're right, and they're wrong!" (Of course it's not any better on the "That's not change, that's more of the same!" side of the aisle either...)
Seriously, I think if the plan is world domination and overtaking Windows market share, we have to pick one DE, one toolkit, one file system, etc.
Good thing we here at slashdot don't have any unhealthy obsession with toppling Goliath...
Where's the Euro-Adapter!!!
Don't not look inside the box...
And any real trekker knows that re-routing power is a command decision. It's up to the captain to decide if those jerks in stellar cartography get any air...
Yes, but they must also have 5 years experience in developing, maintaining and administering a state of the art web 3.0 .Net on rails e-commerce customer "engine"... (And be willing to work for less than India).
Dammit, don't give them ideas!
Seriously though, I'm sure they already covet the cellphone model, and this is only the first step towards that (can't wait to see those TV ads for family nights and weekends surfing). Well maybe not the first step...
Insane contract tom-foolery? Check.
Horrible quality of service? Check.
Incompetent customer support? Check.
Mirroring all of our private data on government servers to be searched by next generation echelon? Check. (What, you really think they don't?)
Geez, it's a lot closer than I thought. All we need now is some guy in hornrims out wardriving, "Can you ping me now? Good."
I miss my IBM XT too, but do we really want to go back to swapping floppies? Currently 16 GB is enough only for anyone who doesn't do anything with digital media... My CD collection takes 16GB by itself. RAW files from my camera take ~10MB each, and let's not even get into video. You have to remember that most laptops are sold as desktop replacements. Only us geeks have an overpowered desktop, terabyte raid NAS and a laptop (bare minimum). And since Vista + Page File = ~10GB... Of course Linux uses less and does more, but that's not what comes pre-loaded (yet).
"A casual home user who needs a word processor shouldn't be expected to lay out $500 for some overblown suite."
Which is why most all pc's sold in the bigbox stores come loaded with Works or WordPerfect. And some dippy photo editing app. And an equally dippy disc burning app. And probably some other stuff. What isn't included is the stuff that's brand name recognizable, your Office, your Photoshop, your Nero. And while the tools that come with the machine are more than adequate for most, some (most) people just have to have the best of the best. You could install Ubuntu and show them how every single computing need they will ever have can be filled by open source without spending a penny, but you still won't have an answer for "Where's Roxio Easy CD Creator? That's all I know how to make CD's with and I'll be damned if I'm going to change for a machine!"
Of course with the new low power chips and micromini-itx pc's and cheap lcd's, maybe the price difference between open source and commercial software will become obvious enough that people will start voting with their wallets...
Or they'll just buy whatever has the most "bling" and pirate everything else...
And how is "Chick" degrading? I can't see the difference between it and say, "Dude." Maybe I should start a protest blog the next time someone calls me a "Feller"...
"They can learn all this new stuff and provide the same service cheaper."
At some point there will be a "Management Revelation" that cheaper != better. Currently it looks that we get the same output from offshore for less money because the vast majority of people onshore spend their whole day:
1. Covering their Ass.
2. Making someone else look bad.
3. Trying to get out of work, while somehow appearing more important.
4. Posting in forums on the internet...
While the offshore staff actually works.
So the choice is, follow the same office-politics status quo that has been around for a half century, or do actual work and provide actual value for your company. You'll still be "right sized" but you won't be in the unemployment line. And when common sense does break out and "You get what you pay for" becomes the new mantra, you'll be sitting pretty.
Of course we'll all just end up working for different departments of the Peoples Global Republic of Wal-Mart, but you don't have to be a douche on the way there.
The "Walk through beijing" was part cgi (think "Beowulf"), in fact the commentators said so before, during and after the segment. They specifically stated that it was being shown rendered because there was no way to safely film it. Of course I watched it at 3am on the rebroadcast. Maybe those fiends at NBC waved their terrible editing wand over the whole thing...
"In fact, one of the NES cart fixes I recall was pushing it down slightly so there was some friction, and squirming the cart around in the connector. ;)"
That's a bigger problem than blowing on the carts. By shoving it in and moving it around and what not, you're actually spreading the socket out causing less contact with the board.
Was the call center actually Apple owned? Or was it one of the many "Teleservice" outsourcing companies? Either way, the described situation sounds exactly like standard call center practices. The sad part is most companies seem to think call center = help desk. You can have one or the other, but not both. A help desk costs more, but yields better results whereas a call center costs less and yields nothing but frustrated customers. Unfortunately most organizations seem unable to see past the bottom line of the next quarter.
"The California DMV is currently redoing their antiquated system. It is written is assembler. They are updating it to COBOL."
Finally catching up with peoples perceptions of the speed at which the DMV operates?
"If the problem isn't with the UI and isn't with the installer and isn't with the apps why isn't Linux on the desktop gaining any traction?
Because it doesn't come as the de-facto standard pre-installed OS of choice at the retail outlets (on and off line). When people say, "you should really try linux/bsd/whatever", the response is "Why? My computer already came with windows."
It always comes down to the "Business Transaction". Corp Decision makers don't take anything without an 8 figure price tag seriously, and grandma has to buy her print shop discs. The consumer mindset is focused on how much things cost. We want to save as much as we can on stuff we buy all the time (hence the food section at walmart, you might as well eat industrial waste...), but when it comes to "things" that others might see, we spend like no tomorrow. Houses, cars, boats, clothes, fancy electronics, etc. And the fact is, most people still equate software with the box it came in.
endeavors. Classes on how to post successfully to slashdot wouldn't hurt either.
I brought that up to make this point.
If we replace "climate change" with "intellectual apathy" and "gas prices" with "cable/satellite prices", we may actually have a direction...
Of course the kids are all on the internet now, but maybe if we curb the TV as a Sitter practice during the younger ages, perhaps their later years won't be filled with such stupid pop culture bullshit, and theyrell be room for worthwile
Or maybe I'm just old...
Yes, it would. I'm infinitely more comfortable using one of those then any trackpad. Put it in the same area as touchpads are and my very capable left thumb (thank you sega, sony and microsoft) would have no trouble navigating my screen. Hell, throw in a second one on the right for scrolling vert and horiz.
Or they could save everyone some time and just include a mini already-paired bluetooth mouse in the box.
Salty Lime-Aid that is, and once project Margaritaville gets off the drawing-board, global warming will be nothing more than a fuzzy (at best) memory...
Don't forget the ability to scratch a compact disc...
Using my experiences with Qwest to judge by, they most likely agreed to the monitoring initially, but soon found that their "network" was not capable of such feats and came up with the afforementioned "Ballsiness" as a cover for their technical ineptitude. Real ballsiness would have been alerting the media/public the second the feds asked them.
I agree completely. That "if" changes everything. Make a pile of this suitable hardware and see if it fills your desk. I'll be over in superdome with my pile of "Linux-Suitable" hardware.
I must have gotten just the wrong laptop, but when everything from startup to standby takes considerably less time and my HDD indicator isn't constantly twitching when using linux, I have to wonder. I couldn't try XP, nVidia drivers won't install for my nforce/7150 combo, and HP only lists drivers for Vista.
My last straw came when I attempted to install the software that came with my new camera to read it's RAW format, and the installer was allowed by the system to install 32 bit directx 9. On vista x64. First, shame on me for not tossing any included cd's, they're always a waste of plastic. Second shame on Sony for coding such a stupid installer. Third and most importantly, shame on vista for letting it happen at all. And if my error is "Windows cannot start because the following file is missing or corrupt", and it tells me to put my install dvd in, shouldn't it logically follow that it's just going to replace those files? I guess not since it sat thrashing my HDD for 15-20 minutes and finally gave up.
Oh well, ubuntu just works, the only pain was the wifi (which took 1 download, 2 commands and a reboot to fix).
So we can ignore Apple and Microsoft's licenses because we don't like them, but if anyone even thinks about subverting the GPL, fire up the pot of boiling oil? Awesome.
Personally I believe the choice has to be made by the individual, not the courts. Enough people start reading EULA's and asking uncomfortable questions at retail, and we may see better licenses, or even more use of free software. Of course that would require everyone be educated about software licensing, and have their brains rewired from a lifetime of marketing exposure...
If you like KDE apps, which I don't. There's just something about the interface and menus and what not that I just can't stand. Oh well.
Back on topic, I personally use rawstudio to import from my camera do some basic adjustments and then export to gimp. And mono be damned, F-Spot is a perfect iPhoto replacement. I've played with lightroom and aperture on vista and leopard respectively and find both work well, but just don't justify their pricetag for me.
There are plenty of options, and they should all be available in most distro's repos, so just try them all (even the KDE stuff). I used synaptic and searched "camera" and installed anything that looked decent. I found dcraw liked my camera better than ufraw even though ufraw lists my model as supported and dcraw does not... So as always, YMMV.